“The Fathers of the Church can well afford to preach the gospel of Christ. It contains nothing dangerous to the regime of authority and wealth; it stands for self-denial and self-abnegation, for penance and regret, and is absolutely inert in the face of every [in]dignity, every outrage imposed upon mankind.”

—  Emma Goldman

The Failure of Christianity (1913)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The Fathers of the Church can well afford to preach the gospel of Christ. It contains nothing dangerous to the regime o…" by Emma Goldman?
Emma Goldman photo
Emma Goldman 109
anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and sp… 1868–1940

Related quotes

George C. Lorimer photo

“To deny one's self, to take up the cross, denotes something immeasurably grander than self-imposed penance or rigid conformity to a Divine statute. It is the surrender of self to an ennobling work, an absolute subordination of personal advantages and of personal pleasures for the sake of truth and the welfare of others, and a willing acceptance of every disability which their interests may entail.”

George C. Lorimer (1838–1904) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 169.

Mark Hopkins (educator) photo

“The very act of faith by which we receive Christ is an act of the utter renunciation of self, and all its works, as a ground of salvation. It is really a denial of self, and a grounding of its arms in the last citadel into which it can be driven, and is, in its principle, inclusive of every subsequent act of self-denial by which sin is forsaken or overcome.”

Mark Hopkins (educator) (1802–1887) American educationalist and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 535.

“[T]he church does not preach the gospel at the pleasure of any administration or decline to preach it at another administration’s displeasure. We preach at Christ’s pleasure.”

Michael Horton (theologian) (1964) American theologian

What Are Evangelicals Afraid of Losing? (2018)

“Bathed in his currents of liquid helium, self-contained, immobile, vastly well informed by every mechanical sense: Shalmaneser.
Every now and again there passes through his circuits a pulse which carries the cybernetic equivalent of the phrase, “Christ, what an imagination I’ve got.“”

John Brunner book Stand on Zanzibar

tracking with closeups (32) “The Cool and Detached View“
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

Poul Anderson photo

“Nothing in excess, including self-denial.”

Poul Anderson book The Boat of a Million Years

Source: The Boat of a Million Years (1989), Chapter 2 “The Peaches of Forever” (p. 29)

“Self-denial, the surrendering of immediate desires, is a prerequisite of the Christian life. This is noticeably absent in the gospel of Consumer Christianity.”

Skye Jethani

The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)

“EVERY STUDENT MUST CHOOSE ONE OF TWO PAINS: THE PAIN OF SELF-DISCIPLINE OR THE PAIN OF REGRET OF NEGLECTED OPPORTUNITIES.”

Ahmed Omaar
Henry Fountain Ashurst photo

“Poker teaches self-reliance, self-control, self-respect, self-denial, and independence. But when cards are wild or are given fictitious authority, the noble game is robbed of its romance, grace and stimulation and degenerates into a gambling scheme.”

Henry Fountain Ashurst (1874–1962) United States Senator from Arizona

Johnson, James W. (2002). Arizona Politicians: The Noble and the Notorious, illustrations by David `Fitz' Fitzsimmons, University of Arizona Press. p 118.

“The philosophy of self-denial also taught the brotherhood of man, based on the Stoical belief that every human being without distinction possesses a spark of divinity that is in communion with God, who in the Stoical system is called Logos (Word, Reason, Meaning)—the word John's Gospel uses to describe Jesus.”

Thomas Cahill (1940) American scholar and writer

Source: Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003), Ch.VII The Way They Went: Greco-Roman Meets Judeo-Christian

Related topics